The present invention relates in general to printers used in point of sale kiosks, where the printer may work without an attendant.
A kiosk is a small, self-standing structure such as a news stand or ticket booth. Some unattended multimedia kiosks dispense public information via computer screens and may have either a keyboard, touch-screen or both used for input. Some kiosks are used for point of sales and may need to provide the user with a printed receipt or a ticket to a purchased event.
Kiosks are often located in places that are remote and the user is free to operate the kiosk without supervision from a merchant. A good kiosk design requires that the unit be as reliable as possible. The mechanisms must be reliable and every possible means of operator induced failures need to be eliminated. Printers in kiosks have been particularly vulnerable to operator induced failures. A common mode of printer failure occurs when the operator grabs a receipt document generated by the kiosk printer before the printing is complete thereby causing a paper jam. Several kiosk printer manufacturers have addressed this failure mode by designing a mechanism known as a presenter.
A presenter allows the kiosk printer to complete printing a document before the operator has the opportunity to extract the document. When printing is complete, the document is fed very rapidly from the kiosk giving the operator almost no time or reason to prematurely grab the document before it is fully available. There are several different methods used in presenter mechanisms to allow the printed document to be accumulated within the kiosk while allowing printing to complete. Most presenter mechanisms allow the document to xe2x80x9cloopxe2x80x9d, some have methods of coiling the document; but all known methods require the document to be pushed a distance before the loop or coil is created. The looping method requires the document to be pushed across a bridge a distance before the leading edge of the document is stopped. Feeding additional document length causes the portion of the document that spans the bridge to buckle. In the coiling method, the document is pushed into a coiling cage until printing is complete, then the entrance to the coiling cage is flipped in position opposite the exit slot of the enclosure. Once the coiling cage is in the proper position, the feed drive mechanism is reversed and the document is presented to the operator or user. Those skilled in printer design understand that a printer mechanism that xe2x80x9cpushesxe2x80x9d documents is far less reliable than one that pulls the document.
There is, therefore, a need for a presenter for a kiosk printer that does not push the document and will prevent the user of the kiosk from prematurely trying to extract a document from the kiosk before printing is complete.
A kiosk printer has a presenter mechanism that pivots and moves between two positions in response to a signal from a paper or document sensor. The presenter has a set of motor driven presenter rollers for moving a document from the presenter and a document sensor for detecting when a document is in the presenter document exit path. If no document is present in the presenter document exit path (e.g., a user has removed a receipt), the presenter returns to its xe2x80x9chomexe2x80x9d position where the presenter rollers are directly opposite the kiosk printer document exit path and positioned to receive a printed document.
When the kiosk printer starts printing a document, it feeds the document into the rotating presenter feed rollers. As soon as the document sensor in the presenter senses the document, the presenter is moved (pivoted) by a motor so the presenter moves at the same rate as the document exiting the kiosk printer. In this manner, the document does not buckle. The presenter pivots to a predetermined position where it stops creating a document xe2x80x9cbridgexe2x80x9d. At this point the document is hidden from view of the user of the kiosk. As the printer continues to print, the document (spanning the bridge) buckles and forms a loop between the printer document exit and the presenter. When printing is complete, the printer cuts the document and signals the presenter to feed the document to the user. The presenter feed rollers then feed the finished cut document through the document exit. If the user grabs the document, it freely moves from the presenter and the printer mechanism and feed path are protected. The presenter, according to embodiments of the present invention, predominately pulls the document through the document path while preventing a user from prematurely trying to extract the document before printing is complete. In an alternate embodiment, the document may be fed partially out of the presenter awaiting user action to physically remove the document. Then after a predetermined time, the presenter feed rollers are reversed and the document is fed into an internal trash bin or shredder in the kiosk.
The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technical advantages of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be described hereinafter which form the subject of the claims of the invention.